New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has appointed its MP Shiv Pratap Shukla as the chief whip of the party in the Rajya Sabha.
Shukla, who was appointed vice-president of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh in February, was elected to the upper house of the Parliament in 2016.
Shukla was the Minister of Finance in the first Narendra Modi government at the Centre, and had held ministerial roles in Uttar Pradesh multiple times.
Born in Khajni, Rudrapur, UP, a village near Gorakhpur district to a middle-class family, Shukla completed his graduation in law from the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University.
His political life started in the early 1970s as a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. In 1981, was elected as provincial secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.
During the Emergency, he was arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act and was in prison for 19 months from 1975 to 1977.
Shukla was elected a member of the Uttar Pradesh assembly in 1989 for the first time. He was re-elected in 1991, 1993 and 1996.
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As a minister in UP, he initiated an 'education for all' scheme, worked to reform conditions for prisoners and various rural development schemes.
He first held a ministerial post in Kalyan Singh's government of 1991-1992, then became minister for jails in 1996-1998 under the BJP-Bahujan Samaj Party rule, a short-lived coalition government of Mayawati and Kalyan Singh, and was later appointed minister for rural development in 1998 in the Rajnath Singh-led BJP government.
(With inputs from agencies)
